Freshman Positives

[MisterX]

You guys forgot "Here, File" But yea being a freshman it is all about paying your dues and ensuring you know what you are doing. I put my heart into all the minial jobs that I had to do and people took notice. I ended up being the first (and only) freshman to attend the practice of regionals and I was one of only 2 sophmores to go to it last year. Yea it can be annoying work some times but if you do it and not complain you are that much higher up than the others. Plus as a thank you note the senior on the very last match of our Zone Zeal competitiion allowed me to be the H.P. and be on the main stage outside of Epcot!

[lilszek24]

haha that is soo classic...we have about 6 freshman, we never let them live it down but at the beginning of the season we were driving our old robot and 3 of them walked in and just sat their mouth opens in awe...one of them finally said so we get to build one of them huh!? it wus classic they were sooo amazed!

[shyra1353]

Originally Posted by dez250

werent we all freshman at a time?

not everyone .. i went from grade eight to grade 10 .. but still completed all the work for all my grade 9 courses ... try that one on ...

as to treating freshmen .. we have one on our team and we treat him the same .. sure i call him a freshman some of the time ... but its all jokes and he knows it ...

and going to find non-existant tools ?? making people (not just freshman) find something non-existant (not just tools) is common within the team .... my engineer told me (a junior) yesterday to find a left-handed screwdriver .. but then again he was calling a hammer a hacksaw and a nut a screw ... and one time he left us alone to have the motors hooked up by the time he got back ... when we saw him coming back we werent done yet so i led him around the building to find a monkey .. hahaha .. now thats a joke between the team ....

[Ryan M.]

I'm insulted. I'm way smarter than anyone else on our team and I'm a freshmen.

[steven114]

When I was one last year, I came at the perfect time - I was the only one who had a clue as to how to program the darn thing. I learned PBASIC in a grand total of a few hours, and earned some respect very quickly like that

[Matt Leese]

Freshmen, like all people, come in good and bad varieties. The issue normally is that given that freshmen are younger, there is a tendency to be immature (not that all freshmen or younger are immature and not that all those who are older are mature; I've met adults who are less mature than high school students).

Immaturity can be difficult to deal with but there are ways to handle it. Normally, these issues would mainly fall to the mentors to deal with. One of the key things is to keep everyone busy, even if it's with fairly simple tasks. Start with simple tasks and after they've mastered those, build the tasks into more complex ones. This is good for everyone and has the advantage of taking those who are immature and helping them build maturity.

Now, that said, on our team, we have exactly one senior. We have a good number of freshmen and because of the way the school is setup, we have a good number of students who would be middle school aged. Some of our best workers are those who are freshmen or middle school students. Frankly, I didn't know that they were that age until I asked. So being a freshmen doesn't mean that you're going to just get in the way but it can take some more effort to make sure you don't.

Matt

[cdawzrd]

The way our club is set up (ours is a CLUB AND A TEAM to the guy above), since we draw students from about 20 schools instead of one, its hard to find older students interested. We had about 80% Sophomores/Juniors in 2001, but now we only have two seniors, three juniors, and about 8 sophomores. I am a freshman, but have been on the team four years, giving me a *little* more experience than the 10/11 graders just joining this year... (nothing against you guys, you are great) The annoying thing, not to be hypocritical, is the younger 7th/8th graders that got recruited, mainly since most of them do not show maturity and cannot stay on task. There have been about three or four of them that come to meetings regularly and have a positive effect on the effort. The rest of them I believe would have a better time in the FLL team...

My $.02

[Winged Wonder]

heehee i'm a freshman but practically the whole team had said that i'm the "freshman who doesnt act like a freshman" to the point where i'm not even considered a freshman anymore, i'm "so awesome" that i'm automatically a 'senior' lol. kinda.. weird but still pretty cool... i'm just happy the team actually likes me/accepts me for who i am. :-D

[Taylor_Ratliff]

Being a freshman, I am slightly offended, but am also understanding of your frustrations with lower classmen. I myself cannot stand many of my freshman at our school, but not all of us are so immature. I am taking English II, Pre-Calc, and several other advanced courses and do not look, or act like most other freshman. I am at my team's meeting EVERY day they are held, including this week (which we have off). In hours spent in robotics, I am second to none.

Taylor Ratliff.

[rangersteve]

I am a freshman... the only freshman.

Even though our team has one freshman from what I've found we have a large number of first year students.

I understand that freshman are sometimes annoying or in the way. so continue the jokes because next year i'm sure i'll find them funny.

[Koko Ed]

I know freshmen make easy targets and it's all in good fun but remeber they are the future of your team and if all they remember is how badly they were treated and they don't come back it's the team that will ultimately suffer.

[Elyse Holguin]

Originally Posted by sirbleedsalot

having them look for nonexistant parts is also fun ie: a metric cresent wrench
but seriously we need them if we want this organization to continue

or a wire stretcher

really though, our freshmen have been a tremendous help this year!

[ozzie12]

I'm a freshman and I am the only one on my team that knows 3ds max.
(Actually, someone else does but he is the CAD lead; I'm left to do our animation). Oh exciting deadlines.
Well hope that disproves some generalizations.

[Alaina]

My team doesn't treat members by grade. We're all treated equally no matter what our skill levels are.
First year members can learn what second year member knows very quickly. So they don't have any specific "simple" jobs...

[Alekat]

Could anybody bring some detail to the term Super Freshman? Dont have any on my team but i'd be intrested to find out what feats your freshemn have accomplished "sarcasm encouraged" . again, keep it all in good fun and for those freshmen who are reading this thread, please feel free to post your thoughts and/or feeling to the topics at hand